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Social Media to me

Here’s a quick post to explain my use of Social media, notably Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn

Facebook is for your personal network, usually people you used to/still know;

LinkedIn is for your professional network, usually people you’ve worked with/done business with in the past;

Twitter is for people you haven’t met yet! 🙂

I try and keep my networks like the above, but since starting MyProactiveLife, I have been blurring the lines a little more, and I’m comfortable with doing so. Why? I believe that ultimately we are one person, and you cannot keep things separate forever – who I am is who I am, and I attempt to live my life by a set of core beliefs regardless if it’s dealing with a friend, would-be collaborator or work colleague!

Also, I would like people to know that who they meet and work with is someone they feel they can trust and build rapport with – I am not sure you can garner either of these without being sincere & authentic in all dealings with others.

6 thoughts on “Social Media to me”

Andrew, this is fantastic summary!
Social media has no strict guidelines, or ethic, and as long as you understand the impact of blurring the lines between the different networks, that’s OK!

However, in my opinion, this is not for everyone. I prefer to separate the information I feed my networks.
Social network online are an extension of our offline networks – I would not normally talk about business around dinner table with your family – why would I do that online?
I wouldn’t normally talk about my kids in a business conference – why would I do that online?

There is a need to be aware of the people in our different networks, and talk to them about topics that are relevant and appropriate. Like we do IRL 🙂

Interesting topic you’ve chosen. Like you & Raz I use the networks differently as I see that they have a different purpose & largely different audience.

I do think there are times though that they need to crossover as topics cross boundaries, examples or references from one side of you is relevant in the other world and at times a little of information so your network gets to know you better is important.

My concern or sadness with social media is that it makes me wonder who did these people used to have these conversations with? And how are those relationships (probablly family) going? Will we lose the ability to converse at the dinner table? Or worse – will we choose social media over the dinner table?

@Raz – you bring up some interesting points, and I did keep this one short for a reason, but you are right about keeping things different on different networks. As an example, I’ve shared minimal information about my family on Twitter, nothing on LinkedIn; I don’t accept everyone I meet on Twitter as a ‘friend’ on Facebook, etc. For this post to stay simple and brief, I left stuff out 🙂

@Julie – As you know one of my goals is to connect deeper with everyone, family included. I think that making the time to do this is vital – I believe (and could be proven wrong, but it is my opinion) that people sacrifice ‘family’ for ‘work’ more often than not. I heard “The Sunscreen Song” again today (from the Romeo & Juliet Soundtrack) and the lyric that seems very apt right now:

Get to know your parents. You never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

@Robin – A pleasure always! Let’s discuss further next time we meet to see if there are other thoughts lurking away on how we use these tools!

Great post, good to keep it short and hope the healthy commentary continues. Here’s my 2c 😉

It’s an important area you’ve discussed here – which I hear being described as “digital curation” by @LukeRides and it’s what @RazChorev is referring to in his comment as well. @Robin_Dickinson has also taught me about being respectful to your audience, and by treating the various socnets accordingly.

Which is why I like the “selective status” features of Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn – the #fb and #in tags we can insert to selectively share our content with Facebook and Twitter – being respectful and valuable to those audiences/friends there.

Interestingly for me, I agree with you and Raz, which seems contradictory however I’m leaning toward you – I actually do talk about my kids at a business conference, and business at the dinner table – my life is an open book mainly (within reason!) – but that’s just me.

Others are different. For example a mate who is a senior, experienced business manager in a large multi-national but only uses Facebook to play Farmville with his family and friends overseas. Another mate who is a senior manager in an Australian large corporate, and only just joined Facebook this week. The don’t tweet, and maybe never will (I can only hope they join! 😉

I think there’s a difference between being “sincere and authentic” and being appropriate and mindful of who you are speaking to (which is where I believe Raz is coming from)

I meant to also add that this is why I am experimenting with multiple Twitter accounts this past week – you will notice @AskTonyIT and @AskTonyFood popping up lately. They are experiments for me in adding value to my networks, respecting them by providing content appropriately.

I’d like to acknowledge Julie’s comment too – the point about conversations and family. As we “invest” time in these networks, what is the cost? Are we sacrificing time with our loved ones? The challenge is to find that balance. It is a big challenge for me. I’ve averaged 15 tweets per day since I joined Twitter over 2 years ago! It’s all relative though, others do lote more than that.